Tag: mistakes

So far in my journey as a client of escorts, I have five real regrets. Things that given another opportunity I would do differently. That isn’t bad given how many amazing experiences this adventure has given me. My biggest train-wreck, was the Sydney, Guns and Roses concert of February 2017. Strap in, it really is a train-wreck!

This is a complicated tale, it taught me a lot of lessons, it still rears it’s ugly head more than six-months later – it is the disaster that keeps on giving! Yet it all started so innocently, with no indication of the mess that would eventually unfold.

Not In This Lifetime

I was in an Uber on the way to see a comedy performance at the Sydney Comedy Club with one of my closest companions and we were talking about music. At the same moment, we both mentioned that tickets to Guns & Roses, ‘not in this lifetime’ concert in Sydney had just gone on sale that day. Snap! One of those serendipitous moments. I looked at her quizzically, and asked ‘how does a young woman list a band from my youth as one of her favorite performing acts?’. She went on to describe to me the level of her love for Guns & Roses, it was captivating to hear her passion.

So in what seemed like more perfect timing, while stuck in Sydney traffic, I logged on to the ticket site and purchased four VIP section tickets to the show. A show that was over six-months in the future and told my wonderful companion that two of those tickets were hers to use however she wished, as a future Christmas and Birthday gift. She was happy, I was happy, and we were both looking forward to seeing Guns & Roses in the New Year – not as a booking but as a gift. Two separate pairs of tickets. My companion was going to take a friend of hers, another Guns & Roses fan, and I was going to take a childhood friend of mine, who I knew was also obsessed with the band.

Patience

The tickets took a long time to be delivered, in fact they did not arrive until early in the New Year. I think my long-time companion had started to think I would never ‘pony-up’ with the promised tickets. Well as soon as they arrived, I did, and it was wonderful to see the expression of joy on her face when I handed them over. I made it clear again that there we ‘no strings’ attached, and checked with my companion that her ‘non-working’ guest for the concert was going to be fine knowing that one of her clients, was going to be there alongside them. She said it was perfectly fine, no issue at all.

As the concert approached, I got ‘cold-feet’ about bringing one of my old ‘real-life’ friends and having to effectively ‘come-out’ as a client of escorts. I am sure he would have been fine, but as you know, people who don’t know the industry, often change their views about us upon learning about our secret lives. I decided I would either go alone or invite another escort to accompany me. I checked if that would be fine with my original companion. She said it would be stupid for me to go alone and that not only would she have no issue with me bringing another escort, she felt that it would be the best idea. True or not, she made me feel that she would be completely comfortable, and was going to be wholly focused on the concert in any case. So I decided to make a booking out of the remaining fourth ticket.

Think About You

The first person I asked was another regular companion of mine. She was always wonderfully direct with her opinions and I’ll never forget her response, it needs the profanity left in for effect: “I fucking hate Guns and Roses, fat Axl can suck a dog’s dick for all I care”. To which I said, “So I assume that’s a no”. Her reply, “assume what you want, but I am not going”. So I went further afield, and asked a Melbourne regular companion of mine to come up to Sydney with me. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to come to Sydney at that time due to other commitments, but suggested another escort that I hadn’t met as she knew she was a Guns and Roses fan.

I made the request, but then found out that she was now based in Adelaide and not Sydney and the logistics of flight, accommodation, and the fact that it would have been a ‘first meeting’ proved too difficult and I suggested it wouldn’t be workable. So with all of this unexpected difficulty happening all at roughly the same time, I made two big mistakes. Firstly I made a public Twitter post to see if anyone wanted to ‘make a booking out of the concert ticket’, and secondly I sent three private messages (PMs) to escorts that I was close to, to see if they were interested. I did this all in a moment of madness, not sitting back and thinking about what might and probably would happen with this unusual and ill-considered turn of events. Well of course you can guess … it all blew up in my face.

Welcome To The Jungle

So the public post was pure stupidity on my part. Who takes an escort to a rock concert as a first booking, hardly the environment for ‘getting to know each other’. Of course I didn’t think about that before the 140-character disaster was out in public as a Tweet. There were a number of responses. Some telling me I was a fool. Others accusing me of creating competition for a booking. Some asking to come along and some very nice legitimate approaches from escorts who were Guns and Roses fans. Later I would meet two of the escorts who made kind and legitimate approaches, and I had lovely bookings with each of them. I also managed to create a few waves and some other people who took offense at the whole thing. Some of whom have still not forgiven my mistake, even after all of this time and even though it had nothing to do with them.

Worse that that, were the private messages. I think my brain had taken the day off that day. After the ‘Axl can suck a dog’s dick’ response and the difficulty in gaining interest from some other close contacts, I assumed that it was unlikely that any of the three escorts I sent private messages to would want to, or be able to go with me to the concert. Of course what do they say about assumptions? Well of course two wonderful escorts that I already had a strong connection with were able to go, and they responded to what they assumed was a single invitation. Ironically at almost exactly the same moment. Yes, you are right, it was stupid … I had seriously fucked up.

Ain’t It Fun

I took the response from the person I thought my original gift recipient might get along with best, not that there was much in it, and then tried to explain my mistake to the escort that I had to ‘let down’ with bad news. It didn’t go well. She was offended, felt that I had embarrassed and belittled her and not respected our connection and her professional reputation. I tried to eat humble pie and apologize, I had stuffed up after all, however she took it far worse than I imagined even given my large error of judgment. She demanded that I bring a specific gift to our next booking that was the same value as the ticket. I said that I wouldn’t be doing that, as although I agreed that I had made a mistake, I wasn’t going to be told to bring a gift to a booking.

That was the beginning of the end for our client-escort relationship. Conversations about our next booking got worse. She asked for a deposit for the first time blaming my ‘flakiness’ for needing it. I knew it was about the concert and in the end I cancelled our next planned booking and paid a cancellation fee instead. This companion and I had a significant journey together, I liked her (and still like her) a lot, but it doesn’t take a lot to damage the ‘fantasy’ and break a client-escort connection. I had ‘loaded the gun’ with my stupid mistake and my companion wasn’t going to let me off the hook – eventually pulling the trigger. The first private casualty of this story, added to the public damage that I had already caused myself. I still miss her and our time together.

Paradise City

The day of the concert arrived. My wonderful companion turned up for lunch at Cafe Sydney in the most beautiful, sexy and largely see-through dress. Spoiling me and distracting a lot of male (and female) guests at the restaurant. It was a stinking hot day in Sydney, 40-degrees, and the open deck at Cafe Sydney doesn’t cope well with that sort of heat. We both sweltered in the heat, but had a great time, enjoying cold champagne, seafood and lots of laughs over our predicament and the evening ahead. We retired to the Shangri La Hotel for a couple of hours of fun in a much cooler environment, looking out over a beautiful Sydney harbour on a warm summer’s day. It was a magnificent lunch-time booking, a great time after a number of previously great moments together.

We prepared to head over to the concert, but got caught up in more conversations and some more drinking. In the end, with heavy traffic also slowing us down, we only arrived at our amazing vantage point, at the front of one of the VIP areas, as the first Guns and Roses song was drawing to a close. Caught up in the ‘booking’ part of the afternoon, we arrived late to the supposed key event of the day – the Sydney Guns and Roses concert. Not surprisingly my earlier companion and her friend had been there early, soaking up the environment and the support act, and upon our arrival greeted me with: “OMG, trust you to be late to the concert, glad you finally made it”. Or at least it was something like that, it was too loud with the starting second song for me to know for sure what she said.

The concert was great. Ironically, a song-by-song recap of the concert isn’t the purpose of this article. At the end, the four of us walked out together and then tried to find an Uber to take us back to the Sydney CBD. That was a forty-minute saga of wandering around Homebush and trying to find a place to meet up with a not very helpful Uber driver in a precinct where most of the streets were closed to traffic. Finally we got in a car, that dropped myself and my companion for the concert in Sydney, and then took my earlier companion and her guest on to their destination. It was weird to be on a booking with one companion while observing another being out with her friend in public. I don’t recommend that as a good dynamic, it makes for some uncomfortable moments.

Nightrain

It was late. My companion agreed to allow me to collect some things I had left at her in-call and spend a bit of time having some drinks and unwinding. I agreed to leave the minute that she told me to go. It was not an intimate moment together, it was a lot of talking by two tired but hyped-up people after a loud rock concert and a wonderful afternoon. As happens in the early hours of the morning, time passes at a different rate and by the time my companion said, you had better get going, it was close to 3am. I walked back to my hotel and sent a thank you message and got a brief and equally pleasant one back, saying that my lovely companion had enjoyed the lunch, concert and our time together.

The next morning, I woke up to a new additional message. It accused me of ‘short-changing’ her, stating that the envelope had $300 less than expected and my long, late conversation with her had also cost her a morning booking. The message was that I now owed a further $800 for the lost income and overstay. It was a very different tone to the night before and all of our other conversations, and it caught me completely by surprise. I had been to the bank and put the whole withdrawal into the envelope, so I couldn’t understand (and still don’t understand) how it could have been short, unless the bank short-changed me, I dropped some of the money, or something else happened during the evening. It was certainly not intentional and I was completely devastated – I am not that guy. I was upset with this message, however I took it on face value and immediately paid the $1,100 that I had been asked to pay.

I am not going into my reasons here, but although my companion was entitled to ask for what she did, I felt that it was unfair for some private reasons. So although I paid the additional amount, it diminished the whole day for me and the way it was handled also impacted upon my previously positive relationship with this companion. I miss her, I respect her, she is a wonderful, highly regarded and successful escort and a lovely person, but it ended our connection and I have not seen or spoken with her since. So in the end, even my companion for the concert was a casualty from this rolling disaster.

Don’t Cry

So at least two wonderful escorts now dislike me, and my journey of meetings with them ended. One as a result of declining their acceptance of the invitation, and the other with overstaying and payment confusion. A number of people who showed interest in the Twitter post were left with a bad perception of me. An even greater number watched the train-wreck unfold online and some of them felt that it was such a great sin by a client that they remind me still six-months later. Even my closest companion’s ‘non-working’ guest for the evening, her friend, while we were wandering around Homebush after the concert asked her in a quiet voice that I overheard … “is he a dick?”. Those words, that question, has echoed in my mind many times since.

Firstly, I wonder if my companion thought on that question herself? I’ve wondered what her true perception of me was. Am I ‘a dick’ to even my closest escort companions? I’ve also thought more specifically about that evening and the surrounding events. It wasn’t my finest hour. I got carried away with the “I have tix” mentality and over-valued the gift that I gave to my wonderful companion – I should have bought her separate tickets and not even been there in attendance with her. It took away from the generosity and thankfulness that I wanted to show to her for all the amazing things that she had done for me. I was the old-guy cramping her style.

I put it out on Twitter in a thoughtless manner. I did not give enough consideration to other escorts that I was already seeing and who might really appreciate the invitation. I hurt a regular companion and I overstayed with another. I was a dick. I never intended to hurt anyone, but I did. I could have been so much better than I was. Of course when you hurt people you care about, you really end up hurting yourself. My regrets are for the people I know, like, care about and were there or otherwise involved.

Out Ta Get Me

The people I don’t give a toss about are the self-rightous bystanders who love to attack one of the few active clients on social media who talks about their journey. The same people who complain when they are misunderstood, not cut slack themselves by others, or slighted by clients, other workers or society at large. If you can’t see the hypocrisy in attacking me for something that was harmless to you, a story that you have no idea about what really happened, or use as some excuse for accusing me of even worse (perceived and untrue) behaviours, then I no longer care. Here is the real story from my perspective. The story of a flawed client, who makes mistakes and often doesn’t know the consequences of experiences that I am having for the first time. The public mistakes of a client who is trying to do the right thing, but not always succeeding.

This whole saga was rich with lessons and saddened with consequences. Good bye to the wonderful people I met and lost as a consequence of my mistakes with this concert. I still value our time together, I miss you and I wish you well. I would change things about this period if I could, but like all things in life, the lessons are also valuable and I’m not sure I should ‘give them back’ even if I could.

One In a Million

I still feel like I am so lucky even to have the experiences that don’t go so well. To have the companions that have stuck with me, despite sometimes ‘being a dick’, well they are one-in-a-million, and they have made my journey one-in-a-million too.

Thank you again for reading. As you can probably expect, I am nervous about this piece, I don’t come out looking so great and I am probably just giving more ammunition to those who already like to take a swipe. My only request, keep any guess work and judgement on others involved private. This is my story and my version of events.

Most of my risk-management in this secret life of seeing escorts has been good luck rather than good management. So I am not sure that I am qualified to say much on this topic. It is however a regularly requested article, so the time has come to do my best. It is as much advice to myself as a tale of caution for others.

Before I start, let me say that I owe almost all of the fact that I have avoided ‘complications’, to the escorts that I have seen. For the most part, escorts brilliantly manage risk for their clients, and it is an under-appreciated part of the escort-client experience.

Sex and Intimacy Without Entanglement.

This ‘step-in, step-out’ fantasy world is of course the anticipated promise at the heart of the escort-client booking. Immediately the idea is that there is less risk than an affair or some other more complicated arrangement. It is true that there are far less entanglements, but no one can remove this risk entirely. I will return to emotional risks later, for now, lets start with some of the obvious ones.

Sexually Transmissible Infections (STI’s).

Looming large, and with good reason, is the risk of contracting and spreading infection. Thankfully this is probably a lower risk than most ‘first-time’ clients would expect. As having a rich sex-life with professional and cautious sex-workers is some of the ‘safest-sex’ you can have. Quality escorts are very cautious with their health, their well-being, and their own risk management around disease. I am not disclosing my own level of sexual activity, but so far (touch wood, hehe), I have not had any disease, other than perhaps a cold, resulting from my experiences with escorts.

As a client, it is also up to you to reduce this risk. I get an STI health-check every three-months. Most sex-workers are at least this attentive, if not more. Your own frequency of testing as a client would depend upon your level of activity, but you must get checked, it really is an obligation – unforgivable to transfer disease due to your own negligence. If you have any symptoms or doubts, get tested immediately, and don’t have any bookings until clear. If you are active, get checked regularly. Although the week’s wait is a pain for everyone, knowing that you are ‘clear’ is a good feeling. Being responsible and a considerate client is also a good feeling.

Never partake in high-risk behaviours. I like uncovered oral more than covered, but I always let the escort make the decision, regardless of their service description. There is not enough difference to care, and it is best to leave the ‘safety’ considerations in the hands of the expert. I have realised that in doubles and with toys, my knowledge around ‘safe-sex’ was limited, and I am glad that escorts have taken control and ensured a safe environment for us all in these experiences. Also if something feels strange, stop and ask, once (and thankfully only once), I had a condom come off. It felt odd even though I didn’t know it was off, I stopped and we fixed the situation. Thankfully in my case, it was with someone who had seen me before, and knew that I wasn’t doing anything deliberately. Not surprisingly, escorts will suspect you of poor behaviour, they experience too much of it, so make sure there is no reason to think you are not safe and a complete gentlemen. We all benefit from keeping sex safe and reducing the chance of infection.

Financial Risk – Getting ‘Ripped Off’.

Of course this is a business, money is changing hands and there is a financial risk. The risk for escorts is enormous, getting robbed, being paid with ‘fake-notes’, being hustled in other ways by asshole clients (and I would rather not even call them clients), gamed or fake-booked by other unscrupulous escorts, the list goes on and on. So when I see someone not wanting to pay a deposit, it is laughable really. No escort is going to secure their financial future running off with a deposit. Even if you, as a client, loose your deposit, so what – if you can’t handle a lost deposit, you are playing the wrong game.

The real financial risks for clients are something else entirely. Can you afford what you are doing? If not, you are opening up risks of depression, financial self-harm and resulting anger misdirected outwardly at escorts who are not the cause of your own financial actions or hardship. There is also the risk of trace-ability. Seeing escorts can be costly, moving that money, usually cash, around can create the pathway for discovery in parts of your life where you would like the secret to remain a secret. Think carefully how you do this. This is one area that I managed well from the start and it has saved me a lot of potential risk and grief by making sure it was private and protected.

I have been hustled, although I blame myself entirely for letting it happen. I have also had escorts choose a ‘faster-track’ to some additional financial benefit rather than building a lucrative longer-term connection. I don’t blame them for that choice, it was a choice after all. I decided a while ago, that type of action would be a deal-breaker for me. When an escort wants to work that way, I honour their request, but that is a signal for me that it is the end-of-the-road. I miss some of those escorts a lot, I still like them a lot, but if they would rather take an earlier pay-day, then I know the balance between interest in money and interest in me as a regular client is tilted to a point that I can’t ‘suspend my disbelief’ any longer, and I make a different future booking choice. We all have to make our own decisions and know where our boundaries lie. I have a problem with overly mercenary behaviour and outright lying, it just destroys the fantasy for me. It doesn’t make me upset, and I still respect every escort that I have said goodbye to for these reasons, it is simply a choice.

Getting ‘Outed’ – Being Discovered.

I didn’t understand this risk at the beginning, it was all a new world. It is probably the most pervasive and ever-present risk for a client who is operating a secret life to the rest of their reality. It is also a risk for a large number of escorts who also have an identity and part of their real-life that they want to protect, or just a desire to remain private and operate reasonable barriers to some of the other risks that escorts face.

Some clients operate their own ‘fake identity’ complete with ‘burner phone’ (separate disposable phone) and other ways of creating a separate persona. Other than my blog and public social media presence, I never went down that road. It is the general level of trust-worthiness of escorts that keeps most of us safe, see my article on ‘Secret Keepers’ for some more discussion on this point. Despite this, there is a lot of ‘outing’ and even more regularly the threats of ‘outing’ occur online and in other ways. It is still a surprise to me that something so nasty, so maliciously evil, seems to be threatened on social media and in the back-channels of social media every single day. See ‘World of Private Messages’ article for some more thoughts on this topic as well. I have had a number of threats, as have some other clients I have spoken too. If there is one thing the industry still needs to address better, it is this unsavory aspect of jealousy, extortion, threats and anger – it is one of the nasty faces of the escort-client world, since so many of us depend upon secrecy around our participation.

There is also the risk of ‘self-outing’. An even greater risk than disclosure by others, that is more about lack of personal care, self-destructive behaviours, relationship breakdowns and of course sometimes just coincidence. I have my own stories here, especially early in my journey of both coincidence and naivety, they are too involved for this article, and perhaps I will write on them later. The lesson of course is to exercise care, it is easy to be discovered, and once the story is out, it is very hard to go back. I have great risk as a result of this blog, but then I need to talk about my experiences, we all have to decide what level of risk we can tolerate. Self-outing is one thing, doing it to someone else or even threatening it is unforgivable in my opinion, unless the circumstances are extreme and are preventing an even more unforgivable scenario.

Emotional Risks.

The last part of this article is on the idea that these connections are ‘without entanglement’. They simply aren’t. Yes there are boundaries, there is a transaction, there are appropriate behaviours and it is a better scenario for ‘separation’ than most others where two people come together in an intimate setting. But humans are humans and we are built for connections and we all carry our own issues and baggage.

My advice for this article is prepare yourself for this. Prepare for anger, jealousy, desire, lust, upset and love. If you are going to play in the ‘escort-client’ world, you are playing in a world of heightened experience and heightened emotion. Many of us are sorry for the people who don’t get to experience this and could not go fully back to the ‘muggle’ world. It is a taste of something that is very hard to give up, mostly fantasy, with just enough reality to be confusing and addictive. This ‘super-charged’ world has its own costs, dynamics and price to pay. This will unfold differently for everyone, and in this blog I have spoken about many of the more emotional aspects of the journey.

From ‘Single Booking Sadness’, to ‘Post Booking Melancholy’, ‘Friends and Lovers’ and even saying goodbye to an escort that I love in ‘My End of Summer’. This is an emotion journey for many of us, even if we try to pretend at times that it isn’t. The emotional risk is the biggest risk, just savour the ‘downs’ as a back-ground to how great the ‘ups’ are. Don’t let the darker side of emotion create collateral damage with self-harm or the harm of others. Being hurt is not an excuse for hurting, outing, stalking or otherwise reflecting this on others. Move on to somewhere else that gives you joy and leave the industry and the environment better for the quality of your participation.

At the end of the day, the only way we manage the risks are to work together for a safer, supportive and more enjoyable industry, rich with experience and reward.

Your stories, opinions, comments and feedback gratefully received. Thank you so much for your readership and especially to those that have supported me on this journey and with this blog – now I even have a list of some of these people on a thank-you page.

Not so long ago, I was known by another name on Twitter – that account was called Prince Eggnog (@PrinceEggnog). The story of how that name came about, I will save for another day. This blog article is the story of some of the mistakes that I have made as a client of escorts. That story needs a revelation, and that revelation is that Percival Blakeney and Prince Eggnog are one and the same anonymous client.

Why does this even matter? The reason is simple, Prince Eggnog was my first ‘anonymous’ Twitter account as a client and I made a bucket-load of mistakes during that period. I am still making many mistakes today, but no attempt to write about my short-comings and the lessons that I have had as a client would be complete without Prince Eggnog. Time to deal with some ‘egg on my face’.

Having an active social media profile as a client.

My first mistake was having any social media profile at all. For a while, I was an anonymous client, reading profiles, reading escort social media and booking some escorts and starting to see some regulars. This is probably the most typical client approach on social media – radio silence! Communication was for the most part by text messages, with limited contact between bookings. It was a wonderful time, full of brand new experiences. Although I was making plenty of mistakes as a new client, they were largely invisible – I wasn’t, at least as far as I know, making any ‘public’ mistakes.

Then I was nearly ‘outed’ twice, and an escort suggested that I set up an ‘anonymous Twitter account’, and use that for some of my communications. The Twitter account of Prince Eggnog was named and born. Being ‘anonymous’ never sat that comfortably with me, but like the early days of seeing escorts, the early day’s of having a social media account were exciting. My activity primarily centered around discourse with escorts, other clients and related sex-work accounts. This social media activity had its own level of taboo, intrigue, additional industry learning, and it was nice to have another place to engage with the escorts that I had met, and to learn more about other escorts that I hoped to meet. I have already written about becoming ‘Addicted to Escorts’, I also became addicted to the industry’s social media. Having a ‘client profile’ on social media opens up a whole new territory for making mistakes, and what is worse, these mistakes are there for everyone to see.

Making public social media mistakes!

I hope that for the most part, I make a pretty decent client. I certainly care about all of the escorts that I have met, and I care about the industry. It hurts when bad things happen. I feel disgusted by bad client behaviour, disappointed by the nastier side of the industry, sad when people are trolled, bullied and upset, and I feel happy when people are having a great time. I feel especially happy when I am having a great time. One of my biggest mistakes is that I thought other people would like seeing escorts and clients having a great time. Unfortunately that is not always, or even often, the case.

Celebrating escort-client bookings.

I thought I could ‘celebrate’ my journey as a client on social media. I thought that when an escort gave their permission, showing that a ‘great booking’ had occurred would be a nice thing to do. After all, this sort of ‘booking recap’ content is published all the time. Well I was wrong. I knew when I saw similar posts with other clients, when they were out with escorts that I adored, I felt my own ‘pang of jealousy’ – why wasn’t it me, was I still a liked client, why did I have to see that when I was having a bad day, or any other version of normal human envy. Then that thought would pass, and I would think how happy I was that an escort that I liked had been treated well and their business and the broader industry was good. People were having fun – and isn’t that how it should be? I would also look forward to my own next booking with that person, and I even grew to respect (and learn from) some of the better behaviours, client generosity and booking ideas of the more experienced clients out there than me.

I know many people feel like that, but there is also a very nasty side to escort-client social media. I was accused of being a ‘show-off’, of trying to have escorts compete for my bookings, of lying, of being a ‘man-slut’, of being a ‘disease-spreader’, or trying to move the power dynamic away from escorts and into the hands of clients. I was accused of far worse than that. I was threatened to be ‘outed’, black-listed, slandered on escort forums, and I even had a laughable death threat. I don’t know whether I am an idiot, but none of those things bothered me that much, there was only one thing that actually really upset me – and that it is why I shut down the Prince Eggnog account. I was worried that I was ‘Hurting Feelings’, a topic I have written about in the past. I became aware that for some of the escorts that I was extremely close too, my activity was actually hurting their feelings. This isn’t an ego thing, I didn’t break anyone’s heart (I hope), it was simply annoying to them, and for that reason I shut it down. In my mind, that account did not provide enough benefit to me, to warrant hurting the feelings of anyone else, even in a small way.

Even bigger mistakes were in store!

It gets worse. At one point, I asked publicly on Twitter if any escort would like to attend a concert with me. This is a complicated story, perhaps destined for its own article one day. In short, I had a spare ticket to a concert. I asked a regular of mine at the time who wasn’t interested. Then in a profoundly stupid moment, I put out a public Twitter post asking if anyone was interested. Realizing that a loud rock concert wasn’t the ideal place for a first booking, I got cold feet and asked (in private) three escorts that I knew much better if they were interested. Two said yes. In mishandling this ‘concert ticket’ fiasco, I eventually lost my client relationship with the two escorts who said yes, the one who originally said no, and the respect of a number of other people on Twitter.

What you do publicly can have very profound and long-lasting consequences. There are so many lessons from that one badly thought through incident, perhaps the biggest, is that even though the whole industry is full of ‘competition’, just like any industry or market, don’t create competition or the perception of competition, even if that is not the intention. Clients seeming to create competition, even though they probably don’t know that they are, is a far from an ideal scenario. I have suffered from that one action more than anyone else involved, probably more than anyone knows or will ever know, and I am still suffering from the consequences of that saga even now many, many months later.

So how many lessons does it take?

You would think the ‘concert fiasco’ would be enough – oh no, when it comes to slow learners, I can be among the slowest. Not that much later, I had a lunch-booking cancelled on me on the morning of the booking. I had (and still have) no issue with that at all, the escort in question had no choice, and I was not upset by the cancellation. I have never yet been upset by a cancellation. We ended up catching up eventually and she still lets me see her, something that I am thrilled about. I did however have a nice lunch planned for that day, and I was already in the hotel room when the lunch was cancelled.

Yes, you know where this is going already, I put a public Twitter post out to see if any local escort was free to take up the same-day booking. Let’s not spend too long on this, but the lesson is largely the same. Escorts can try to get a late replacement for cancelled bookings through public forums, clients cannot. In the escort-client world, it isn’t like other industries, a good client makes it seem like it is a date and not a purchase. It is about the fantasy and the experience more than the reality. Unintentionally, I made it look like a purchase and a competitive one at that. So there is the answer, sometimes it takes me at least two big mistakes to learn one simple lesson. Client’s shouldn’t use public social media to fill an escort booking – lesson learned.

Other mistakes and learning experiences.

I can see that this topic is going to be one with many chapters. I am not even close to outlining how many missteps and faux pas I have made. So there will probably be more articles on mistakes in the future. One I think I will need to write about is the idea that there are ‘No Nice Endings’. I don’t want this to sound negative, but usually when there are no more bookings between a client and an escort that have had a long history together, the reason is likely to be negative. Unless there is a ‘retirement’, the ceasing of a regular or semi-regular client-escort relationship is normally the result of something negative happening. I have hinted at this in ‘What Went Wrong?’, and ‘Escort Relationship Breakdowns’, however I think the conversation about ‘what can be learned’ in these situations still needs some attention (in my mind at least).

My biggest mistakes!

Easily my biggest mistakes are simple to describe but harder to avoid. When the client-escort relationship is a strong one, it is pretty easy to get hurt. I have spoken about ‘Hurt Feelings’ in a past blog article. In this case, the mistake is a simple one, when I have been hurt by an escort – and that certainly happens to any regular and caring client – there are times that I have not handled the hurt well. Escort-client relationships are a fantasy, they are a pretend perfect world, they are this way so that the ‘moment together’ in the framework of a booking can be this perfect place, a perfect fantasy moment given a temporary place in reality. I should have processed and eliminated the hurt I felt and moved on. My mistake is when I have felt the pain too much, and as a result I have either unintentionally shown that I am in pain, or worse yet reflected that pain back to the escort that I care about – it is the ‘care level’ that allows the pain to be created in the first place.

Almost every one of my ‘endings’ with an escort is the expression of this lesson as yet still a work-in-progress with me. Being too needy, or the opposite position of being too hurt or upset, is very likely to damage or end the connection. While it is an ‘escort-client’ relationship, it needs to stay within relationship parameters that have limited tolerances for the expression of pain, anger or hurt. The escort or the client will leave if it looks like being too much like a ‘real relationship’, unless both have agreed that is where it is headed. For the escort-client relationship to continue it needs to remain a close-to-perfect ‘fantasy’ – no residual hurt allowed. It doesn’t mean that ‘hurt’ can’t happen, it just means that it needs to be resolved, forgotten, forgiven or otherwise dealt with very, very quickly. Someone needs to move past the negativity, let it go, or else it is all over.

I have ‘blown-up’ some great client-escort relationships and some escorts have blown up ones with me. I have a couple of connections that have been put-at-risk, I only hope that I have learned this lesson in time. I don’t want to lose anyone else.

Moving on from my mistakes!

I am happy to consign Prince Eggnog to the past, it was part of my experience, part of my growth, and it came with both huge enjoyment and almost equally acute pain. I do sometimes wonder why certain people never forgave me for my mistakes. I know there are ‘unforgivable sins’ in the escort-client world, although I have never (and will never) commit any of those. For some reason however, client mistakes in public are not forgivable in the eyes of certain escorts and other clients. I do sometimes feel that Prince Eggnog was unfairly treated in some circles, even though it was true that he was more of a ‘Town-Fool’ than a Prince.

Now you know what (or who) came before Percival Blakeney. That is not to say that my new client persona is any better. I am still making plenty of mistakes, I am still upsetting people, I am still being trolled from time to time and I am still learning. I will be writing more about my mistakes, past, present and future – because part of this experience, part of this journey, is continuing to learn.

If I have ever upset you, I do sincerely apologize. I promise that it was without malice and I regret any mistake that I ever made that led to any hurt. I have never deliberately hurt any escort. Forgive me if you can. I forgive anyone who has hurt me on this journey because you are on your own journey too. After all, there is still too much fun to be had to get caught up in sadness.

Thank you for your readership. You don’t need to share any mistakes, maybe sharing mistakes is another new mistake all of its own, but thank you in advance for any comments and feedback. Thank you to everyone who played the game with Prince Eggnog, and those who went the extra mile with that story – you know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my heart! R.I.P. Prince Eggnog (2016-2017).

The first five minutes of a first escort booking are intense by any standard. Even if there has been plenty of preliminaries – screening, communication and deposits, it is still two people meeting each other for the first time – meeting to have sex.

There is so much that can go wrong. Even if the first booking is a huge success, every subsequent encounter is still intense, and the chance of something negative happening is greater than in most other human interactions. Often one of the people is left wondering – what the hell happened, what went wrong?

The pathway to rapid intimacy – stage one.

In those first five minutes you could fill an entire novel. The client is appraising his booking for the first time in real life, and if they are a decent client, they are trying to complete all the preliminaries and make the Escort feel at ease.

I assume at the same moment, the Escort is assessing safety, payment, venue (if an outcall), as well as the same human appraisal summations as the client – all in rapid time. Adrenaline and heart rates are high, time slows, nerves show through and not everything is taken in and absorbed – at least by me. Yet despite this, I think I know how it is going to go – good or bad – within the first 30-seconds. Humans are amazing at this early assessment stuff really.

I try and handle the payment immediately, with a hotel room tour, drink offer and light chat, all within the first minute. Then I try and give the Escort some space for her booking process, counting the money, texting security and whatever else she needs in her own process of getting organised. Then I (we) try to slow the pace down to get relaxed. It is amazing when this feels in-sync and the early chat is light, funny and pleasant. That is always a good sign.

First bookings with a chatty and open client.

I am a largely open book, within reason. I try and share personal material and insights into ‘who I am’ as part of a rapid journey to personal intimacy. This has risks, and if it is not reciprocated (at least in part) when I encounter an Escort who is very closed, or ‘mechanical’, then I know we are probably not going to meet again. Even if the sex is good, as I have explained in other blog articles, I’m here for physical and mental intimacy.

For a client and escort who are both talkative, and sharing, even at a relatively safe and superficial level, the pathway to intimacy is faster than in any other meeting of two human beings (this is only my opinion of course). That is part of the appeal, part of the addiction, part of what makes this a different experience to the rest of the slower, darker, more boring regular world. It also brings a supercharged environment for things to go wrong.

The pathway to rapid intimacy – stage two.

Both the client and escort build a connection. A lot of this is based on personal experience, short-cuts and assumptions. In showing each other our ‘good-sides’ and then both building an intimate portrait of each other, neither party has really learned those long, hard, lessons of what the ‘red-flags’ are, the danger areas, the no-go zones, or where those ‘crazy’ little parts we all hide inside are lurking.

There is a minefield lurking between the unicorns and rainbows we show each other – ready to be triggered at any time. When the client’s bomb goes off, or the escort’s bomb goes off, the other one is probably going to say to themselves – what the fcuk just happened!

What traps are being set for destruction?

Is the connection too intimate or not intimate enough? Did something get said that triggered an old wound? Is the level of ‘neediness’ building a feeling of care or pity? Is the conversation connecting, repelling or too invasive? Is the physical side clumsy or cute, rough or effeminate? Are the areas being focused on erogenous or irritating? Are the aromas a turn-off or turn-on? There are just so many approaches, things, beliefs and behaviours that can build a connection or destroy it. In this fast race to intimacy, the number of traps left hidden, ready to destroy any building interpersonal connection are huge.

When a deal-breaker happens?

Whether it is one critical ‘deal-breaker’, or the build up of lots of small negatives, when either the Escort or the client decides ‘the bomb has gone off’, they are unlikely to tell the other person due to the ‘transactional’ and ‘momentary’ nature of client-escort connections. They are just going to decide that this booking is the last booking (unless it is a ‘red card’ walk-out-on-the-booking offence).

In many of these cases, the other person, client or escort, is unlikely to know any of the detail of what happened. Why, when a connection was being made (in their view) did the other person pull the pin? This is unfortunately very likely to happen in client-escort connections, because in the rapid race to intimacy, the speed of advancement skips a lot of these discussions and discoveries.

Once again, I don’t have any answers, I just want to get people thinking. If anything, my only suggestion is to be aware that this is a common thing, and also maybe consider sharing any feedback with someone you are feeling close to, or think may be feeling close to you. Rejection is hard, but unclear rejection can be worse.

Since the first version of this article, I have seen polls showing that honest criticism between clients and escorts is rare. This isn’t surprising, no one wants to hear that their ‘best representation’ in a booking has shortcomings. Often the client or escort just moves on, or more accurately away.

If your connection is something that you want to maintain, deciding if issues are worth exposing and attempting to resolve, is a hard decision. I have tried now, mentioning some issues that have arisen, on a couple of occasions. I feel bad mentioning anything, I am not sure I am entitled to do so, and I am fearful of the risks. The result is often complex, feeling like a step forward and backward at the same time. The reality of two people resolving an issue seems to diminish the fantasy of perfect escort-client relations. I still can’t say what the better approach is – honesty or fantasy?

Thank you for your readership. Your comments and feedback is greatly appreciated as is any promotion of my articles.

About this blog

I don't speak for anyone but myself and my personal journey as an Australian client of sexworkers.
You won't find names, secrets or any identifiable or intimate details. This is just the journey of one lonely and uninteresting client. The stories are real and so are the emotions, thoughts and comments.
Client voices are rare, but that doesn't mean this will be interesting - that's for you to decide. If you don't like what you read, then leave.